


Be My Escape

by SlipperyBiscuit



Category: My Candy Love
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Depression, Gen, Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17083619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlipperyBiscuit/pseuds/SlipperyBiscuit
Summary: One shot. Short. During long sessions, Armin rarely comes out of his room. Alexy grows worried and tries to remind him from behind the door people care about him. In Armin's mind, In his games, he matters. In his games, he has a destiny.





	Be My Escape

**Author's Note:**

> Listened to Be My Escape by Relient K for inspiration. This is a personal headcanon depiction of Armin when he's at home and when he gets sad about himself. I feel like it's something gamers, maybe RPG players mostly, understand this feeling.

_“Armin, we’re going to be late…”_

_“Armin, did you finish your homework?”_

_“Armin, you need to get up and go outside.”_

Noises. Sometimes he turned up the TV in his room to counter the noises outside his door or scoot closer to the TV and away from the door that led to the outside world.

Today, Armin was in Ferelden. He was leading his party through the Deep Roads and Zevran wanted to rest his head on Wynne’s bosom. Without realizing it, Armin laughed with his fellow party member’s antics and cherished moments he talked to them through the choices that sounded like him. It felt natural to pick one over others, as if he really was talking to them. 

Occasionally Armin did talk out loud, talking to his teammates as he arranged party members armor and weapons. “Now, see Zevran, you can have my old Duster armor and I’ll…” Armin’s voice sounded far off, far from the reality that tried to pull him back with the noises from his bedroom door. “Take the new Drake armor. We’ll all get item point bonus’s.” His lips formed a small smile as he moved forward in the game. 

Occasionally Alexy popped his head in from his brother’s doorway and worried over his twin. Armin hadn’t moved for hours, didn’t his legs feel pain? Wasn’t he hungry? He noted how his brother’s looked a little greasy, it disgusted Alexy. He wondered if he got his brother a Pikachu bath soap if he would use it but quickly discarded the idea.

Alexy wanted to push further in and pull Armin away from the game but he knew such an idea would have his brother get mad at him and they would fight. With a somber look, Alexy moved away from the door and shut it quietly, his brother never knowing if he was ever there to begin with. 

_“You know it’s just a game, right?”_  Alexy whispered to the air, his voice never heard by his other half.

“Damnit, Alistair! Stop dying! Quick, Wynne, revive him!” Armin’s dream state tone changed rapidly with the battle he was in and he mashed the buttons on his Xbox controller. He leaned a little further towards the TV, sitting crossed legged on the floor, and nearly fell over from how far he leaned. “Alright, now group heal! We can do this!” He said with confidence that may have been considered rare to hear from the teen. 

_“I am a Grey Warden and I_ will  _save everyone…”_

Hours blurred with days. 

When Armin did leave his room it was to go to school or to do something like eat, going to the restroom. Even when he left the game, Alexy noted in his mind that it seemed Armin didn’t leave the world he played in. The school hours consisted of Armin sitting there, tapping his pen against the desk with a glazed look over his eyes.  _“Where are you today?"_ he often wondered when his brother locked out the world from his imaginary one.

_"Today I am the Dovahkiin. The Greybeards are calling to me and I must fulfill my destiny.”_

Sometimes Armin looked like he was in autopilot when he answered questions from friends or moved around in the school. He was here and at the same time he never truly was. He smiled, laughed and talked about events at the school but in his mind he was fighting ferocious monsters trying to tear villagers apart.

_The blades tore through the creature’s skin, the monster howled in agony clutching at its shoulder blade, dark ooze feigning blood pouring from its injury. The hero showed no mercy in his expression, cold icy blue eyes reaching into the depth of the monster’s non existent soul. He lunged forward with his long sword to finish his task._

Armin was in his room again this weekend as he played another game. Alexy talked to their parents, Armin wasn’t this bad before. He knew when to stop playing, when it was time to walk away. It seemed now he didn’t know what time was anymore. Finally, Alexy decided, Armin had to come back to reality. Enough was enough. He headed towards the hallway that led to their rooms and went straight for Armin’s. Armin had responsibilities in the real world and Alexy was tired of being alone at home. 

_“Today I am Ezio Auditore and I am an Assassin, a messenger for times ahead of my own.”_

Armin felt tired but he tried to push it back. He had to find all the pieces to the puzzle and figure out Subject 16’s code and become one step closer to  _“the truth.”_  His knees ached from the lack of blood flow but still he couldn’t move. Slowly he started feeling more of the world his earthly body screamed at him to return to.  _“I’m fine,”_  he reassured himself lazily in his mind but it wasn’t clicking like it was before. The noises started picking up too, someone hitting a wall or door, shouting. 

A headache started forming in his frontal area and paused the game to apply pressure to it. He groaned as started realizing how his stomach pained and growled with hunger. 

Each feeling brought him closer and closer to the world he lived in and it made him thirst for the fictional realms in his games. 

_“I am not the Dovahkiin.”_

“Armin, open the damn door! You have to come out!”

_“Today I am not an assassin that hides in the dark to serve the light.”_

“Armin, you need to come out! It’s been weeks you’ve been doing this!" 

_"Today I am not a Grey Warden with a party full of characters I would gladly fight beside, trying to save our world from the Darkspawn.”_

“I’ll set your Wii on fire, I swear! I-I’ll put it on a stove or… something!”

_“I am Armin. There is nothing special about me and my world doesn’t need me.”_

Finally, he returned fully back to reality. His controller lifelessly laid in his hands and eventually fell to the floor. His eyes followed it and stared at the object with no expression. He wanted to feel sad but he had come to the realization too many times to feel much of anything, a numbness taking over what would be despair.  _“I am no one here.”_

Alexy groaned, irritated with his brother. He leaned against the wall next to his brother’s door and wondered if he should burn the Wii in the living room but knew that it was a little too dire but he didn’t know what he needed to do to retrieve his brother from some faraway land. Surprised, he moved away from the door when it clicked and opened slightly.

Armin stepped out of his room with a gloom like expression until he saw his brother staring at him. Armin cocked his head to the side and the side of his mouth turned upwards, a half smile. “You’re not… actually going to set my Wii on fire? I’ll set your scarf collection on fire too then.” He quipped. Alexy’s brows furrowed as he threw up his hands in the air, “I give up!” he shouted and left the hallway to go to the kitchen. “Come on, I’m hungry! Let’s get some pizza." 

"Sounds good!” Armin replied, keeping up the half smile for the sake of his brother.  _“At least I’m someone to you.”_

He had no fantastic destiny, an epic story waiting to be told but he had his family and he would weave his own stories one day.


End file.
